The United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, appointed 3 African personalities to positions of responsibility on Wednesday, December 1.
Nelson Muffuh of Cameroon has been appointed UN Resident Coordinator in South Africa. Hopolang Phororo, from Lesotho is the new UN Resident Coordinator in Namibia, while Olufunmilayo Abosede Balogun-Alexander, from Nigeria, has been appointed as UN Resident Coordinator in Timor-Leste.
Nelson Muffuh brings more than 20 years of experience in international relations and negotiations, political and development issues at the United Nations Headquarters, regional and country levels.
Prior to his appointment as United Nations Resident Coordinator, Mr. Muffuh served as Chief of Staff and Principal Strategic Adviser to the United Nations Deputy Secretary-General since 2017. He led the overall management and guidance of staff, focusing on the acceleration of systemwide and whole-of-society efforts on the Sustainable Development Goals and on the repositioning the United Nations development system and strengthening the resident coordinators system.
As lead strategic adviser and policy coordinator on sustainable development political and partnerships interventions, Mr. Muffuh helped shape and advance the United Nations’ comprehensive response to the COVID‑19 pandemic, advocate and organize summits on the Sustainable Development Goals, Financing for Development, and Climate Action. He was instrumental in convening and coordinating the efforts of launching the Spotlight Initiative on violence against women and girls, the Decade of Action for the delivery of the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, and the Global Crisis Response Group to address the impacts on food, energy, and finance due to the war in Ukraine.
Prior to this, he led and coordinated stakeholder engagement, outreach and global strategic partnerships efforts to inform the post-2015 development policy process, whose outcome was the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its accompanying Sustainable Development Goals to succeed the Millennium Development Goals.
Mr. Muffuh started his United Nations career with the United Nations Development Programme-United Nations Millennium Campaign, then the United Nations Population Fund in Africa, where he acquired extensive experience in programme management, multi-stakeholder collaborative interventions, partnerships and communications, as well as advocacy and mobilization.
Before that, he served as Senior Programme and Advocacy Advisor for Christian Aid, and Programme Coordinator for the African Liberal Network-Westminster Foundation for Democracy and Transparency International Secretariat.
Mr. Muffuh studied political science and international relations at Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, and development cooperation at Sussex University, United Kingdom.
He is married and has two children.
United Nations Resident Coordinator in Timor-Leste
Olufunmilayo Abosede Balogun-Alexander has more than 30 years of experience in working on leading humanitarian, peace and development projects at a senior level within the United Nations and international non-governmental organizations.
Prior to her appointment as United Nations Resident Coordinator, Ms. Balogun-Alexander served as Head, Humanitarian Normative and Coordination Action, United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women), where she led UN-Women’s global response to humanitarian crises and supported the UN-Women Country Office to strengthen gender mainstreaming in United Nations-led humanitarian coordinated responses in crisis-affected countries.
Before that, she worked as UN-Women Country Representative to UN-Women; Deputy Representative, UN-Women Ethiopia; Director, External Relations and Advocacy, International Planned Parenthood Federation, Africa Region and Kenya; and Programme Manager for the United Nations Development Fund for Women.
Ms. Balogun-Alexander led and supported multi-functional teams at the country level to be fit for purpose and to achieve impact and results, particularly on the humanitarian-development-peace nexus. She led United Nations inter-agency coordination to coordinate joint assessments, develop and implement joint United Nations programmes, including on gender-based violence, governance and protection from sexual exploitation and abuse.
She has coordinated national support and government priorities for development and social policy funding, including co-creating and driving solutions on contentious issues of gender equality, sexual and reproductive health and rights and minority groups, among others, to ensure that no one is left behind in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. She has established and maintained strategic partnerships with Governments, intergovernmental commissions, bilateral donors, media and the private sector for innovative funding and programmes.
Ms. Balogun-Alexander has a master’s degree in gender and development from the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, United Kingdom, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from University of Lagos, Nigeria.
She has two children.
United Nations Resident Coordinator in Namibia
Prior to her appointment as United Nations Resident Coordinator in Namibia, Ms. Phororo served as Director in the Country Office for Zimbabwe and Namibia for more than seven years with the International Labour Organization (ILO). She was the ILO Deputy Director in the Country Office for the United Republic of Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda; and in the Regional Office for Africa, as the Youth Employment Specialist and Decent Work Focal Point Officer.
Before joining the United Nations system in 2003, she worked in Namibia as a researcher at the Namibia Economic Policy Research Unit. In Lesotho, she served as National Project Officer at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and, prior to that, as a research fellow at the Institute of Southern African Studies and as Marketing Officer in the Ministry of Agriculture.
Ms. Phororo has written and published several working papers and selected articles and chapters in books on HIV/AIDS, youth employment and agricultural marketing topics, including an inspirational book titled Joy Comes in the Morning. She is an advocate for gender-based violence and is passionate about leadership and empowering women and youth.
She obtained her master’s degree in agricultural economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Duquesne University. She holds an honour’s degree in psychology from the University of South Africa.
